It looks like my Zaurus will start doing double duty as a robot controller pretty soon (especially since I stumbled across Jonathan's USB serial drivers so I can actually talk to the robot's MCU now)!

The problem is the webcam. I've read various posts about webcams working/not working on this forum and getting horribly confused (you need to compile V4L, drivers don't exist, etc).

The strongest lead I have so far is Meanie's website, http://www.users.on.net/~hluc/myZaurus/custom.html#webcam and his usb-modules ipkg. I'm especially keen on this as the webcam in question (AFAIK) works with the standard PWC driver, a version of which is present in that package but when I install it then run "depmod -a", I get the following errors:

I suspect this has something to do with me missing "videodev.o" especially as it seems to be the webcam drivers that have failed but I can't find it on my filesystem anywhere and I can't find this file anywhere on "official" websites (certainly none of the bigger Zaurus websites and forums that I've tried) ... the only reference I can find to this file through google that seems vaguely zaurus'y is http://www.paipai.org/~humorum/zaurus/modu...rs/media/video/ ... but I'm a little wary of trying it out as all the documentation for that website is in Japanese so I've got no idea if it's for a specific kernel or the like (and Bablefish doesn't seem to like it).

Anyone got any ideas? Meanie, got a moment to shed some light on this perhaps please?

It looks like my Zaurus will start doing double duty as a robot controller pretty soon (especially since I stumbled across Jonathan's USB serial drivers so I can actually talk to the robot's MCU now)!

How very cool I will have to play more with my zaurus soon, been used as silly PDA for way too long now

QUOTE(Raybot @ Oct 13 2005, 02:22 PM)

tried) ... the only reference I can find to this file through google that seems vaguely zaurus'y is http://www.paipai.org/~humorum/zaurus/modu...rs/media/video/ ... but I'm a little wary of trying it out as all the documentation for that website is in Japanese so I've got no idea if it's for a specific kernel or the like (and Bablefish doesn't seem to like it).

The module says it's for kernel_version=2.4.18-rmk7-pxa3-embedix, i will try to recompile a kernel with video/webcam support when i have some time this weekend.

It looks like my Zaurus will start doing double duty as a robot controller pretty soon (especially since I stumbled across Jonathan's USB serial drivers so I can actually talk to the robot's MCU now)!

How very cool I will have to play more with my zaurus soon, been used as silly PDA for way too long now

Well, it's not quite there yet :-)

QUOTE(madeddie @ Oct 13 2005, 09:26 PM)

QUOTE(Raybot @ Oct 13 2005, 02:22 PM)

tried) ... the only reference I can find to this file through google that seems vaguely zaurus'y is http://www.paipai.org/~humorum/zaurus/modu...rs/media/video/ ... but I'm a little wary of trying it out as all the documentation for that website is in Japanese so I've got no idea if it's for a specific kernel or the like (and Bablefish doesn't seem to like it).

The module says it's for kernel_version=2.4.18-rmk7-pxa3-embedix, i will try to recompile a kernel with video/webcam support when i have some time this weekend.

--edwin

I've just tried it anyway and it doesn't seem to have picked up the webcam ... but then again I can't find a /dev/video for instance so perhaps I'm missing something else as well. Anyone got any suggestions?

On a related note, how DOES one go about cross-compiling kernel modules? Then again perhaps I should actually set up my cross compile environment before asking that one ... heh

you get videodev.o if you enable V4L during kernel build. i actually asked tetsu to compile a version of his special kernel with that enabled which resulted in the 18b-hd kernel.anyway, i have the file somewhere in my backups hopefully. you also would need to create a device node using mknod to create /dev/video but i don't know the exact number which needs to be passed to it (again, should be in my backups somewhere, I really hate the fact that my C3000 died just when I was about to finish the webcam driver package)if you are interesting in compiling it yourself, i just finished rebuilding my on-board gcc compiler package (http://www.users.on.net/~hluc/myZaurus/custom.html#gcc) which is preconfigured for building 2.4.20 kernel modules and drivers as well as normal applications for qtopia as well.i'll dig around in my backups for the videodev.o driver and node creation...

you get videodev.o if you enable V4L during kernel build. i actually asked tetsu to compile a version of his special kernel with that enabled which resulted in the 18b-hd kernel.

Ah OK so this doesn't run on the default Sharp kernel? Or is that what you refer to below ...

QUOTE(Meanie @ Oct 14 2005, 11:31 AM)

anyway, i have the file somewhere in my backups hopefully.

... here as in the .o file can work with the default kernel?

QUOTE(Meanie @ Oct 14 2005, 11:31 AM)

you also would need to create a device node using mknod to create /dev/video but i don't know the exact number which needs to be passed to it (again, should be in my backups somewhere,

Great! I would be most grateful if you could somehow recover the details to get this working ...

QUOTE(Meanie @ Oct 14 2005, 11:31 AM)

I really hate the fact that my C3000 died just when I was about to finish the webcam driver package)

I know how you feel ... I've had no less than 5 hard drives fail on me at different times, taking most of my working data along with them eacah time ... I keep backups but it's still really annoying especially if they're out of date (and if anyone was wondering how it managed to be 5, they were all the infamous IBM [Desk|Death]Star 75GXP - 1 standalone and 2 in RAID0, when the 2 in RAID0 died they were replaced under warranty ... by another 2 75GXPs which also died </rant>).

QUOTE(Meanie @ Oct 14 2005, 11:31 AM)

if you are interesting in compiling it yourself, i just finished rebuilding my on-board gcc compiler package (http://www.users.on.net/~hluc/myZaurus/custom.html#gcc) which is preconfigured for building 2.4.20 kernel modules and drivers as well as normal applications for qtopia as well.

Great! I'll have a look. I'm really interested in getting a development environment set up on my box to develop for this thing (well, I have to if I'm going to start trying to get things like a Player robot server running ...). One thing I haven't figured out though is how you use configure scripts or compile kernel modules and the like under a crosscompile environment ... anyone (Meanie in particular) have any hints to offer?

QUOTE(Meanie @ Oct 14 2005, 11:31 AM)

i'll dig around in my backups for the videodev.o driver and node creation...

i can see "terminator 4 powered by sharp zaurus", good luck thogh, will you put up some info on the net as i am looking at doing somthing simmilar (with Head mounted displays/vision augmentation

I can see a scene from the first part of the Tomb Raider movie playing out ... a Zaurus-controlled robot running all over the place, then someone says "Stop!", pops the SD card out, plugs another one in and it starts playing music

Don't worry, my robot is not of a size that would cause such destruction - if it was I wouldn't be trying to fit a Zaurus onto the back of it I'll see if I can get some pictures put up somewhere once it's all done though ...

So you're using the Zaurus with a head mounted display? What sorta display are you using? Sounds interesting! (I presume more info is available on your website but, as you allude to, it seems to be down at the moment!)

Thanks for that! Unfortunately it doesn't seem to like it - the driver doesn't claim the webcam (a Logitech QuickCam Pro 4000 - under Red Hat at least it uses the stock PWC driver). I've got videodog compiling, when I point it at /dev/video[|0|1|2|3|4] it complains about "No such device":

The procedure I followed was basically to install your usb-modules ipkg then this new ipkg of yours. For space reasons I symlinked the .o files into /lib/modules/2.4.20/kernel/drivers/usb and media/video (it didn't seem to like symlinking directories though).

Any suggestions as to where I might look?

On a related note, I figured I might try recompiling the drivers myself (thinking maybe an update to the PWC driver might be needed to support this webcam) but I hit an immediate snag - no kernel source! I presume the kernel source for the Sharp ROM is readily available somewhere ... is the process of getting it all up and running relatively painless or is a pile of mucking around involved?

I have found the small webcam I was looking for. I am interested in setting it up on my 3200 w/ pdaXii13 to vconf. I don't expect much, small window size with low frame rate is OK. Anyone had any success?

Let's add some more to the mix: I've compiled video4linux and the spca5xx driver for Cacko 1.23. The spca5xx driver supports quite a lot of cameras (including my Logitech QuickCam Express). No need to do the mknod stuff manually, since that's taken care of by a /etc/hotplug/usb script. I've added the (experimental) spcaview viewer as well.